Sunday, June 22, 2014

Sunset Marine Parade

On Monday we had a highly successful day of
visits. We had found about 6 additional
families on our ward roster that lived on base so we decided to track them
down. Lezlie baked several batches of brownies and cookies, and we headed for
the base. Although 3 of them had moved
the other 3 were there and were friendly and happy to get a plate of
brownies. In addition we spontaneously
decided (after prayer) to visit a few other families and those visits went
really well. We caught one family just
before they were leaving on a two week vacation, another dad was home early
from work so we got to chat with him, and we delivered brownies to a young
single female marine that we had not seen for several weeks. It all went very well. Then we did our family home evening on
obedience for one less active family and it was well received. This mom of two is home without a husband or
car, while he is away for two months of marine training in South Carolina. We mentioned before about the young bachelor
marine who had the serious surgery last week.
On the spur of the moment we called him at this barracks and asked if we
could stop by and say hello. He said
yes. We had never been inside his
barracks before and it was interesting to see.
We had to sign in at a security guard desk and then our young friend
walked us to his room, which was very nice.
It was a two man room, but it was pretty large and set up with some
shelves in between the two halves as a divider.
It was also very clean and well kept.
The marines do field day every Thursday after which their rooms are
inspected. We had a nice chat with this
young man, and Lezlie gave him a big hug as we left. He had never acted warm enough before but
tonight she just spontaneously hugged him and told him how happy we are that
his surgery went okay. It was an
excellent visit. He has future
challenges to overcome since he has two more surgeries to reconstruct his
bowels. But he seems to be facing the
challenges with confidence and optimism.

After a morning of preparing we
headed to the base on Tuesday. We first visited our dear friends who
are leaving in just a few days . This is the family where I blessed their
baby boy and baptized the dad. We had a nice visit with them and
reminisced about the 8 months we have been visiting them. We were able to
give them the address, phone number, and bishop's name for their new ward in
Arizona. We got a really nice email from the ward clerk of their new ward
saying that they had a lot of marine members from the base there and would
welcome them with open arms. Our time with this family is almost over, so
we are a little sad. But we are also very happy for them because
they really wanted to be assigned to the base that they got. We feel so
blessed and fortunate that we got to be a part of their lives for some
important events, like baptism and baby blessing. We were also just happy to be their
friends. We departed their home and did
a few errands, then loaded up on Subway sandwiches and chips. The next
stop was to pick up a group of our The Basic School (TBS) marines. We had
planned an excursion to see the Sunset Parade, which is a performance by the
Marine Drum and Bugle corps and the Silent Drill Team. They hold this
parade at the site of the Iwo Jima monument at Arlington National Cemetery. It
is a beautiful setting. We had told the marines that we had to leave at
5:00 pm to make it through the traffic in DC and arrive on time for the
parade. At 5pm nobody had arrived yet. Their company commander was
giving some kind of speech and it took forever. But finally, about 5:10,
they all showed up. They enjoyed sandwiches, chips and a plethora of
cookies that Lezlie had baked on the ride into DC. We made it just on
time. The parade was wonderful. The band was excellent and the
silent drill team was simply amazing. Their maneuvers were crisp, precise
and in perfect synchronization. And some of them were dangerous!
They had bayonets on their rifles, and many moves involved tossing their rifle
into the air or catching another person’s rifle. And it was all done in
silence. Our young marines really seemed to enjoy it, and they were proud
tonight to be a part of the tradition and heritage of the Marine Corps.
Afterwards we got to meet the serious girlfriend of one of our marines.
She seemed like a great person and we told our marine so. Maybe we
will get to go to a wedding before the end of our mission. They all
talked and laughed all the way back to the base and offered many thanks for the
outing. We likely will only get to see this group one or two more
times. It will be very sad to see them go, as we have been working with
them since the second week of our mission. They have been a true
inspiration to us.

We worked a good shift at Navy Marine Corps Relief
Society on Wednesday.I had a complex
case that I worked on for over two hours, and we still were not able to resolve
things and help the young marine.He is
returning tomorrow with more information and he should be able to get some
financial assistance then.Our NMCRS
shifts have been getting more miserable as the days go by because the air
conditioning is not working.They are
remodeling the entire heating and cooling system in the building.They gave us some fans and portable air
conditioners, but they do not do a great job.So it can get very hot there!The
humidity is really starting to climb, which makes things even tougher. It brought back many memories of our life in the military! But we are coping.We dashed home, had a quick dinner, and then
packed up two huge platters, one with fruit and the other with many
cookies.We had a record turnout at our
The Basic School family home evening – twenty-one.We crammed everyone into our small room (see
pics) and had a wonderful time.Lezlie gave her superb presentation on how we
can see God in nature and in all of God’s creations.When the marines are in the woods working hard
they can remember God by looking at the beauty of nature.The lesson went very well and the marines
said they enjoyed it.They loved the
fruit and cookies and consumed hundreds and hundreds of calories in
minutes.But they need it!It was a fantastic meeting with our beloved
marines.

What a great Thursday. We had a wonderful lunch with the wife and
family of one of our marines who is leaving soon. She is staying in a hotel for a week with 4
small children, so we thought she might need some time away from the
hotel. We had lunch with her and the
kids at a Chik-fil-a with a playground.
The kids played and played while we sat and visited. I think it was a needed break for her. It was fun to get to know her better. We then visited another one of our TBS marine
families in the newer TBS class. We had
an excellent visit with her and the kids as well. Finally we stopped and made an appointment
with another marine wife so that we can visit them when the dad is home. We were very pleased because the wife, who
has been a little shy with us before, was very friendly and made an appointment
for us to come back next week in the evening.
The weather has become very humid and the days are usually up in the
high 80s or low 90s. It really saps our
energy to be out in that weather much.
And today was an exceptionally hot one.
So we find that we cannot do quite as much away from home. After 3 or 4 hours of driving around and
visiting folks we are quite tired and ready to come home, which is exactly what
we did today.

On Friday we worked an extra shift at Navy Marine
Corps Relief Society. It was a very slow
afternoon with only a few phone calls and no clients stopping by. But after that we met Butch and Catherine
Wick for dinner. Butch is my sister’s
brother-in-law that I have known for years.
We had a wonderful steak dinner with them in Manassas. It was delightful to visit with them and have
a great meal.

Our whole Saturday was taken up by two activities –
Temple and Stake Conference. Today one
of our marine wives, went to the temple for the first time. She had to go up to the Washington DC temple
very early. So we picked up her husband, who is not a member, a little later and drove up to the temple with
him. He is a really great guy and was so
easy to talk to. He and I dropped Lezlie
off at the temple and she went in so that she could go to the temple session
with his wife. Then he and I headed out
to spend a couple of hours together while the women were in the temple. We decided to drive to a nearby mall to grab
something to eat. Along the way we saw a
farmers market set up for the day. I
remembered he had made a comment that he liked farmers markets. So we made a quick, unexpected stop
there. We got some honey, fresh corn and
broccoli, and he bought some pickles. We
then went to the mall, had a nice walk, and stopped for a drink and snack. Once again he was very enjoyable to talk to
and very easy to be with. We went back
to the temple and spent an hour touring the visitors center, where I got to
teach him a lot about church and what went on in the temple. Finally we waited just inside the door to the
temple in the family waiting area. Soon the girls emerged and we were all reunited. She seemed to enjoy her first visit to the
temple and was happy that her husband had been there to support her even though he
could not go inside. We stopped for a late lunch at Great Harvest Bread in Lorton. Shortly after
arriving home we headed out for our Saturday evening session of Stake
Conference. It was very good, and we
heard several excellent talks about “Hastening the Work.” The Stake President was given a goal to grow
the Stake large enough to split it before he is released. So he talks about missionary work a lot in
order to grow the Stake. Our Ward is certainly doing its part... We have had 19 bapsms in the last 5 month!. It was a good
meeting and we were filled with joy as we departed. Our day was not quite over though. We had to spend time getting ready for Officer
Candidate School (OCS) at 0730 tomorrow.
I have the lesson so polished it up a bit. Lezlie worked on a beautiful fruit plate and
organized the muffins and sweet breads we will take. The sweet breads came from Great Harvest
Bread Company, the last of our gift card generously provided by our children
(Thank You).

Our Sunday began with our service at OCS at 7:30 AM. However we have to leave our home at 6:15 in order to get there and get set up in time. Although we had a smaller group (9) because
they have liberty now, we had a great service.
As soon as liberty starts the non-members seldom come on Sunday since
they can sleep in instead. But we still
had a good meeting. We talked about
courage today and they had some insightful comments. They loved the fruit and bread, and even the
small group ate up almost every morsel.
We then picked up a marine wife and her two children to take them to
Stake Conference. Her marine husband is
away at a school for two months and she does not have a car. So she hasn't been able to get to Church for the last few weeks. So we picked her up and took her to the
meeting. It was a good stake conference
session, but I must confess I had trouble staying awake because of getting up
at 5:30 am this morning. Still, it was
really good to be there and see all the faithful members of our Stake. In the
evening the couple that works with us at OCS hosted a dinner at their house for
our group of marines that are graduating from TBS next week. It was bittersweet. We were happy to see them together
socializing and talking about all of their experiences in training here. They have supported each other tremendously
and have truly become friends. But it
was sad because it is about the last time we will all be together. There was plenty of good natured teasing and reminiscing
about the hardest things that they had done during their training. We enjoyed seeing all of them in a casual
social situation, but all too quickly we had to leave for home. We will be proud to see them at their
graduation, but it will be very sad to finally say our last goodbye.